Keyword advertising involves the sale of keywords, sometimes comprising the trade marks of others, by search engine providers so that the keyword purchasers' advertisements are triggered as sponsored results whenever Internet users type in any of the keywords as search terms. This method of online advertising is new and novel and has been embraced widely by many businesses. However, its legality, particularly in the sale of keywords comprising the trade marks of others, has been challenged in a number of major jurisdictions. This article examines the approach of the courts in the U.S. and the UK with regard to the practice of keyword advertising with particular emphasis on the concept of “trade mark use.” With these foreign decisions serving as a useful guide, this article analyses and evaluates whether the practice of keyword advertising is legal under Malaysian trade mark law as embodied in the Trade Marks Act 1976.

The ever increasing nexus between human rights and business and the accompanying vagueness of concepts such as a company's ‘sphere of responsibility’ for human rights can, and has, created anxiety amongst companies. Considerations of human rights traditionally take place in the context of a state-based system of global governance; however, the rise of the corporation as a powerful non-state actor in recent decades has seen increased interest in understanding the emerging relationship between human rights and business and what, if any, responsibility business should assume for protecting human rights. This article considers the role played by U.S. technology companies such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft in working with the Chinese government to censor internet content and thus intrude on the human rights to freedom of expression and opinion and the right to privacy. It concludes by focusing on the practicalities of protection and how human rights responsibilities might be apportioned between states and business and if so, how, when and why such an obligation might ensue.

Mass atrocity invokes humanitarian impulses in all of us. But when a genocidaire casts himself as a victim, the right response is less straightforward. This article analyzes a recent hearing of one of Cambodia's most feared Khmer Rouge cadres who stands trial before a newly established hybrid tribunal and suggests the consequences of responding to war crime trials with polemics rather than principle.

This study seeks to unravel the puzzle underlying China's and India's differing experiences in attracting two types of foreign investment: namely foreign direct investment (‘FDI’) and foreign venture capital investment (‘FVCI’). Complementing the law and finance literature, we argue that foreign investors prefer the direct investment mode in China despite its poor governance environment because direct investment provides private means of control over the business, and China's institutional environment provides a more facilitating arena for FDI than India's. In contrast, India's legal infrastructure and related institutional settings prove to be better than China's in accommodating foreign portfolio (indirect) investment especially in the form of venture capital. The conclusion of this article has implications for the two countries' legal reform in the direction of the desired type of foreign investment. It also provides comparative insights into the legal institutions of China and India in fostering national innovative capacity and entrepreneurship.

Hong Kong recently amended its Domestic Violence Ordinance (“DVO”). During the deliberations, the issue of whether protection under the DVO ought to be extended to same-sex couples arose for discussion and has since been the subject of extensive debate. Religious and conservative groups have argued that including these groups within the DVO risks overhauling the traditional meaning of “family” and could implicitly legitimize same-sex marriage whilst others have insisted that failing to provide equivalent civil remedies under the DVO to such groups amounts to sexual orientation discrimination and is contrary to Hong Kong's international human rights commitments. This paper reviews the various arguments that have been raised against the inclusion of same-sex couples within the DVO and argues that Hong Kong's international and constitutional commitments to the principles of equality and non-discrimination require that samesex couples be brought within the purview of this legislation.

This article seeks to explore whether the position of juvenile victims, vis-à-vis the Cambodian criminal law, has changed with the passage of the new criminal legislation and whether this change is positive or otherwise. The quality of this change, henceforth, will demonstrate to the reader whether the overall reform of the juvenile justice component of Cambodia's criminal justice system, which has spanned over the last 15 years and has been funded by the international community, has been a success. The author has limited the scope of this inquiry to a comparison between the various domestic laws applicable to juvenile victims and did not include comparisons with international law, model laws or juvenile laws of other states. Being the first publication of its kind, this analysis limits its claim to the analysis of the relevant statutory provisions rather than ‘practice notes’ which have yet to develop.

The corporate law reform initiatives proposed by the Korean government in 2008 are still pending before the National Assembly. While the Korean government was sympathetic to the arguments by business interests for liberal rules conducive to business organization, these demands have to be weighed against the desire for good corporate governance norms that promote accountability and transparency. Such a tension has unfortunately resulted in internal contradictions and uncertainties in the context of Korea. This article points out the uncertainties that the reform initiatives have left unresolved and the potential for their resolution by the judiciary. More fundamentally, the author argues that, in order to resolve the issues currently left unanswered, there is a need to address the debates regarding the theoretical foundations of the corporation.

The late 19th century saw the spread of anti-homosexual criminal laws to British colonies. The iconic example was the Indian Penal Code of 1860, with its prohibition of ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature,’ a rewriting of the anti-Catholic ‘buggery’ law of 1534. The language of 377 travelled around the British colonial world. France and certain other parts of Europe had decriminalized homosexual acts a century earlier, so the colonial powers of Europe spoke with different voices. Modern decriminalization is largely the product of the human rights era - sixty years since the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This article analyzes the liability of the Philippine President for the tort of constitutional negligence in relation to the murders and forced disappearances of leftists, journalists, and other dissidents. It uses the international law doctrine of command responsibility as a form of attribution that may be used, by analogy, to hold the President accountable for a culture of impunity. The article describes the role of the President as the regulator of a human rights-conducive information ecology and argues that massive human rights violations meant to silence dissidents are a source of liability for which a class action suit is an available remedy. Finally, it looks at the concept of presidential immunity from suit from a comparative perspective and argues that the continued application of restrictive immunity rules established during the American colonial era is misplaced considering the universalist design of the present Philippine Constitution and developments in immunity jurisprudence in the United States.